Month: March 2016

Join us in the Slice of Life story challenge. Every day for the month of March, bloggers all over the globe are writing their slices and sharing them on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

Over the course of the last 8 weeks, I have been working on my health by completing a challenge. I signed up for the Whole Life Challenge because it seemed like just the thing to get me working toward the healthy goals I have for myself.

The challenge is an online platform in which you sign up and join teams. Each day you earn points for completing healthy habits for the day. There are seven habits each day to think about: nutrition, exercise, mobility, sleep, water intake, reflections, and a lifestyle habit. What I noticed is that just signing up for the challenge really set me up to put my mind in a place to develop new habits. Starting with my New Year’s resolutions, I have been working to create my best life and be healthier.

As far as nutrition goes, I had really gotten far from the way I wanted to be eating. My husband and I were spending way too much money on fast food and restaurants and going “out for a beer” too often. I love to cook and I know what a healthy meal looks like, but I had gotten lazy. This challenge gave me some pretty strict parameters in which to function. I had to get creative. I basically had no bread, no pasta, no cheese, no beer, no french fries or potato chips, and no added sweeteners except Stevia. Was I perfect doing this? NO. But that is what was cool about this challenge. Each day I had 5 points to start with. For everything I ate that was not compliant, I lost a point. This had the intended effect of making me think twice about the treats I chose to indulge with. Just changing my eating habits in this way has made me feel better. One of the treats that I was allowed in this level for nutrition was one glass of wine a day. I learned to appreciate savoring that glass of wine and to be satisfied with just that. This was a big change for me too. I never overindulged and got inebriated, but I definitely had at least 2 glasses of beer or wine whenever I did drink.

The exercise and mobility part of the challenge were a breeze for me on the days that I had Barre class. I had to make a conscious effort to move on the days that I did not have a class. I did better with this toward the beginning of the challenge. In the coming weeks, I would like to tweak my morning routine to include some movement every morning as I was doing at first.

The sleep component was good for me. I set my goal at 7 hours a night of sleep. It made me be very conscious of what time I was going to bed and what that meant for my sleep goal. I am not sure exactly what has made the difference because I have been working on so many things, but I have not had any nights of insomnia this winter. That is a big improvement!

I thought water was going to be a challenge because of the I-am-a-teacher-and-can’t-use-the-bathroom-whenever-I-want-to thing. But I actually drink a lot of water anyway. Now that I also started using doTerra essential oils, I have a set amount of water I drink with a different oil in each water bottle. I can’t remember the last time I was actually thirsty. I am glad that I am making this hydration a priority.

The lifestyle practices were good for the most part. What was awesome was that some of the practices were things I had started doing in the New Year. Having them come up as practices that this team valued as good, healthy habits was a great affirmation that I am on a good path. My favorite were the meditations and the gratitude journal, which are both part of my morning routine.

Reflection is a vital part of my day every day so having to write one each night was fine. Some days it was hard to come up with something to say, but most of the time it was easy to reflect on how I was doing.

Overall, this 8-week challenge has taught me that I did not need many of the things that I thought I might not be able to do without. I don’t particularly miss cheese. I will splurge and indulge every once in a while, but I won’t need to sprinkle every recipe with shredded cheese. Our new favorite recipe is roasted vegetables and chicken breasts. It is so full of flavor and does not need anything else. Just eating better has made me feel so much healthier and full of vitality.

My results in the challenge have been good. I lost a total of 5.5 inches in my waist and hips and about 10 pounds. I also just feel better with more energy. I am definitely going to continue to eat pretty much in this way as I move forward and I will be signing up again for the challenge that starts in May. Maybe this time I will do a stricter nutrition level. We shall see.

This challenge was the best thing I could do in this moment of my life when I am working to develop a healthier version of me. I highly recommend the experience…what is life without a little play? Come join me with the challenge this Spring, I dare you.

   

Join us in the Slice of Life story challenge. Every day for the month of March, bloggers all over the globe are writing their slices and sharing them on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

It’s Saturday and that means it is time to reflect on the week and celebrate things both big and small. Join our community and celebrate this week by linking up or just stopping by the host Ruth Ayres’ blog to read others’ celebrations.

This week was a crazy week and I am celebrating all of the craziness!

First, here in Wisconsin, the beginning of March is not often warm and sunny. But this week, most of the days were bright sunshine and highs in the 50s and 60s. Break out the shorts! (Seriously, people wear their shorts in this weather as if it were a day at the beach)

Next, we had a field trip on Tuesday to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. My school receives a grant each year from the Herzfeld Foundation to attend the concerts for schools that the symphony puts together. This is so important because many of these students from low-income families would never be exposed to this type of performance if it weren’t for this field trip. This year, the music teacher at our school decided to participate in a program called Link Up: The Orchestra Rocks. The students prepared ahead of time learning the music from the concert and all about the composers. There were materials provided to the music teacher for this. They also learned to play some of the songs on their recorders and to sing some of the songs. Therefore, our experience at the symphony was really interactive. I really enjoyed this field trip and hearing my students’ excitement when they heard a song they knew how to play.

Then, on Thursday we had our Spring Open House at school. We did something new this year. It was called Festival of Nations and each class studied a different country and created a display to help people who attended our open house learn about the countries. My class studied Laos. One of my students comes from the Hmong culture and her family came here from Laos. I loved being able to connect with her and help the class learn more about her culture. She even brought us egg rolls and lotus flower cookies to taste! It was a great event and I am also celebrating the fact that it is done!

 

Last, but not least, my class had a visit from the current Alice in Dairyland, Teyanna Loether. Her job is to be the ambassador for Wisconsin Agriculture. The presentation she does for 4th grade students in the state focuses on the foods that are produced throughout the state and how the agriculture business contributes to the state economy. It is always great to have a guest speaker. We had an added benefit in that this speaker was really good with the students. Our kiddos learned a lot about nutrition and agriculture in a short 45 minute visit. They even got to sample some Colby cheese.

We had a busy week, but it was a good one! I am looking forward to being a lot more back to our regular schedule and routines next week, but I am so glad for the shared experiences that make our community continue to grow together.

What are you celebrating this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

This week was a crazy and busy week at school. My students had so many great learning opportunities, but our schedule went haywire.

We spent a lot of the week working on learning about Laos for our Festival of Nations open house on Thursday night. It was a great experience but we spent a long time working to prepare our display for the night.

On Tuesday, we went on a field trip to the symphony. It was amazing and the students had a lot of fun, but it was another thing thrown into our schedule.

Today, we had a presentation from Alice in Dairyland and the Milk Marketing Board about Wisconsin’s agriculture. It is a really well done presentation about products from our state and how agriculture contributes to our economy.

This week was a weird weather week as well. Our temperatures got up to the mid-60s with abundant sunshine this week. For the beginning of March in Wisconsin, this is very warm.

I had a crazy busy but really fun week. I am very relieved that it is Friday and I will be able to relax this weekend!

 

 

Tonight, we had a Spring open house at my school. This year we did something different. It was decided that we would have a Festival of Nations at our school. Each classroom studied a country and created a display about their country. Families were given a passport and got a sticker for their passport from each teacher as they toured the world.

Great idea, right? I loved the idea until we were told the continent that we had to choose from. Each floor was given a continent. Now, I do understand wanting to organize it this way. However, it really stopped some of us who have a connection to a certain country from being able to use our fountains of knowledge.

I really wanted to have my class study Spain. I lived there during college for a study abroad program and met my husband while I was there. I still have a very strong connection with this country because my husband is a Spaniard and his whole family still lives there. I would have been able to do a lot of really good things with my classroom as well as giving them great Spanish food.

However, my floor was assigned the continent of Asia. So, I did the next best thing. I connected to a student’s culture. We studied Laos because one of my students is Hmong and her family comes from that country. We learned a lot. We researched, we read about Laos, we watched videos about this beautiful country. And we worked to create a great display. I loved the connection that we made to my student’s family. She brought egg rolls and flower cookies to share with us and I loved giving her a spotlight.

Our display consisted of research writing with pictures included, small strips of fabric designs using some common patterns in Hmong embroidery, and our own versions of Hmong story cloth.

I was proud of what we had done, but I spent all night feeling inadequate. My colleague, who is a resource teacher and therefore does not have a class to plan for, takes all of these things and runs with them. She treats it sort of like a competition. She worked with the classroom next door and found all kinds of projects for them to do about China. She took the ideas and made it into a wonderland of projects and showed us all up. (There was a lot of time spent on these things that I believe was time that had other purposes in her schedule) That class would have learned just as much about the country without all the glitter. They would have enjoyed the study with just one or two projects rather than dragons, lanterns, the great wall in cardboard boxes and clay, brochures, food sampling with chopsticks, and mooncakes. I don’t think this teacher means to make the rest of us look less capable, but it sure feels like this is the purpose of the over-the-top projects.

I wish I could have enjoyed this night to its fullest without the competition. Why compete? Why try to do better than the next class? Why not focus on learning?

I will go to school tomorrow and congratulate my students on their hard work learning about Laos. I hope that they will understand that we did the best we could and that is amazing.  I will try to let go of this feeling of frustration at the focus on competition that should not have been there.

Join us in the Slice of Life story challenge. Every day for the month of March, bloggers all over the globe are writing their slices and sharing them on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

This week is MS Awareness Week and I thought I would take the time to share some of my story. You see, I have Multiple Sclerosis. As of right now, I have Relapsing/Remitting MS and it has been mostly in control.

My first post about it was a few weeks after the diagnosis in fall of 2013. It was a crazy time in my life and it took me some time to accept it. Since then, I have spent time researching and learning about this disease.

My symptoms are mostly just some fatigue and balance issues every once in a while. I sometimes also have some burning sensations in my shin (kind of like a carpet burn). These things usually come to be an issue after I have been sick for a little while. I have really not had a big flare-up and I am hoping I will not have any issues anytime soon.  What is really scary about MS is the uncertainty. The disease affects people in so many very different ways. All you can do is work to be healthy and hope that the disease will not progress.

I am taking my health into my own hands and working to be more powerful. Thanks to my barre classes, I am feeling more amazing by the day. I am eating cleaner than ever also and I feel energized and full of vitality. I have an injectable medicine that I use and with luck, this medicine will keep my body from forming more lesions or having any of those lesions become active.

I am stronger than MS. #WeAreStrongerThanMS  #liveyourbestlife #barreliferules

One of the things I love about working with kids is the way that they have of surprising you.

I have a really awesome group of students this year. They are friendly and accepting of each other, and we have a great community. However, lately a couple of these kiddos are driving me bonkers.

I am at my wit’s end with one particular student. He seems to contradict everything I say and do the opposite of everything he is asked to do. I know it is probably not every single time, but it sure feels like it. I was talking to a colleague before school this morning about how frustrated I am with this kid and asking what I should do.

Then, this morning we went on a field trip. The bus was filled to the brim with students and teachers. I had been counting heads and did not have a seat to sit in. When I turned around, there was this kiddo that has been frustrating me lately and his friend who has been almost as annoying lately. The two of them had squished together to create a space for me to sit in and were frantically waving me down so I would come sit with them. And as easy as that, I remembered why I love these kids.

I love the way the universe conspires to remind us about what is important. This small moment on the bus helped me to release some of the frustration I have been keeping in and to remember to appreciate each and every kiddo that enters my classroom every day.

Join us in the Slice of Life story challenge. Every day for the month of March, bloggers all over the globe are writing their slices and sharing them on the Two Writing Teachers blog.

I love my work. I love being able to get up every morning and know that what I do makes a difference. I love the relationships that I have with my kiddos. I enjoy the time I spend in my classroom. However, I don’t always feel motivated to get up and go.

This morning was a difficult one. I got up this morning at my early time to fit in my productivity routines. Then, after about a half hour, I went back to bed. That hardly ever happens, but I just wasn’t ready for the day to begin yet. And all day, I just haven’t been feeling it.

It may have something to do with the small cold I have, but I think it just is one of those days. Luckily, I had a doctor’s appointment and had to leave early today. One of my students also brought in food to share from her culture. It was a good activity for a day like this when I just didn’t want to be there.

I hope that I will wake up with better energy and a better outlook tomorrow morning.

 

Today, I got up and went to the gym. I do an intense workout class on Sunday mornings. Then, I came home and did almost nothing. I have done some reading and research on the internet. I have taken a nap. I have eaten lunch. But that is it. I have some work I probably should be doing, but I am choosing not to do it. I am taking the day off in many ways. I have a little bit of a cold and a hacking cough starting. I need to be able to get through a full week of school days with an open house on Thursday. I just needed to be lazy today. There is something to be said for this kind of day that most people do not allow themselves to have very often. I will be back to productivity bright and early tomorrow morning. Right now, I am going to cuddle with my dog and sink into the couch a little deeper.